Thursday, March 15, 2012

Military source calls incident at Afghanistan airport an 'attempted attack'

The
crash of an unauthorized pickup truck at an airfield in Afghanistan
where Defense Secretary Leon Panetta was landing was an attempted
attack, a military source told Fox News, though it wasn't immediately clear whether Panetta was a target.

The strange incident Wednesday occurred on the tarmac at Camp Bastion in
Afghanistan moments before Panetta arrived via C-17. Fox News' source
could not say whether the local Afghan behind the attempted attack knew
Panetta was about to arrive.

The attacker was an Afghan interpreter who was carrying gasoline and a
lighter with him in the pickup truck, which he managed to steal from a
British service member, sources told Fox News. The coalition service
member was injured during the incident, possibly run over by the truck.

The Afghan interpreter managed to drive the stolen vehicle over the very
ramp where Panetta was set to arrive. The secretary was soon diverted
to another ramp. After crashing the pickup truck into a ditch, the
driver got out and had apparently lit himself on fire, according to this
source.

The statement also said the driver is now in custody, and an investigation is under way.

Panetta was visiting Afghanistan to hold a series of meetings with
troops and Afghan leaders in the wake of the killing of 16 Afghan
civilians allegedly by a U.S. soldier.

"We will not allow individual incidents to undermine our resolve to that
mission," he told Marines at Camp Leatherneck. "We will be tested, we
will be challenged, we'll be challenged by our enemy, we'll be
challenged by ourselves, we'll be challenged by the hell of war itself.
But none of that, none of that, must ever deter us from the mission that
we must achieve."

Panetta and other U.S. officials say the shooting spree should not
derail the U.S. and NATO strategy of a gradual withdrawal of troops by
the end of 2014. But it has further soured relations with war-weary
Afghans, jeopardizing the U.S. strategy of working closely with Afghan
forces on the transition.

Curiously, the more than 200 Marines who attended were told to take
their weapons outside and leave them there before the speech.

"Something has come to light," Sgt. Maj. Brandon Hall told the troops.
Asked about the order, Hall said all he knew was that "I was told to get
the weapons out."

A U.S. defense official said the request was not a reaction to an
immediate threat. The official said the decision was made out of respect
for troops from other countries, such as the Afghans, who are never
allowed to bring guns into an event. It was not a request from Panetta
or his security team, the official said.